Facebook will be facing some changes in the near future.
In 2004, 19-year-old Harvard University student Mark Zuckerburg created Facebook.
It is estimated that there are currently 800 million users, 250 million photos uploaded per day and 780 billion minutes spent on the site per month.
Sources familiar with the company say Facebook could be worth about $100 million.
Last Wednesday, Facebook filed papers to raise around $5 billion by selling stock this spring.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO, has said he hopes to strengthen how people relate to each other by going public.
David Kirkpatrick, author of “The Facebook Effect,” has predicted Facebook’s initial public offering of stock will be the biggest the Internet has ever seen.
If everything goes as planned, Facebook’s stock will begin trading on the stock exchange by the time Zuckerberg celebrates his next birthday.
Facebook’s 3,200 employees are predicted to become millionaires. Many have collected stock over the years at lower prices than what the shares could be valued at the open market.
In the filing that occurred last Wednesday, it showed that Facebook had profits of $1 billion on sales of $3.7 billion in 2011.
Facebook became too big to keep its finances private, so Zuckerberg decided to go public. Facebook needs to make certain financial information public according to Securities and Exchange Commission regulations and the deadline to file that information expires in April.
Analysts say this offering is going to change the Internet sector but they warn investors that Facebook may not be a good thing to invest in to make quick money.
Facebook has made a large amount of money, however, growth in the United States and other Western countries has already slowed down.
Recent surveys say Zuckerberg is the world’s youngest billionaire and one of the wealthiest people in the U.S. with about $17.5 billion. Zuckerberg has asked to reduce his salary to $1 per year starting Jan. 1, 2013, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s filing.
Zuckerberg will have final say on just over half of Facebook’s stock votes, because of the two classes of stock he set up to ensure he keeps control.